Er I think you mean : “but the timing is all over the place” Could the sceptics please decide the exact dates that this putative global MWP took place, because it seems to be at different times in different places.

” temperatures in the 260s–400s, 560s–730s and 970s–1250s were comparable with those of the Present Warm Period. Temperature variations over China are typically in phase with those of the Northern Hemisphere (NH) after 1100, a period which covers the Medieval Climate Anomaly, Little Ice Age, and Present Warm Period.”

Really, if you can’t at least vary the M.O. you’re only boring everyone shitless. I know you’re counting on outlasting everyone else by the fact that you (and your fellow slug horde) are full of shit, but, really, what – precisely – are you getting out of this all?

Please notice GSW that the paper you quote refers to a “Medieval Climate Anomaly”, not a MWP.

And please allow me to complement your Wiki quote with more from that Wiki page: “The Medieval Warm Period (MWP), Medieval Climate Optimum, or Medieval Climatic Anomaly was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region that may also have been related to other climate events around the world during that time, including in China[1] and other countries,[2][3][3][4][5][6][7] lasting from about AD 950 to 1250.[8] It was followed by a cooler period in the North Atlantic termed the Little Ice Age. Some refer to the event as the Medieval Climatic Anomaly as this term emphasizes that effects other than temperature were important.[9][10]

Despite substantial uncertainties, especially for the period prior to 1600 when data are scarce, the warmest period of the last 2,000 years prior to the 20th century very likely occurred between 950 and 1100, but temperatures were probably between 0.1 °C and 0.2 °C below the 1961 to 1990 mean and significantly below the level shown by instrumental data after 1980. The heterogeneous nature of climate during the Medieval Warm Period is illustrated by the wide spread of values exhibited by the individual records…[“

GSW: please try and join the dots. My Wiki quote says “…was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region that may also have been related to other climate events around the world during that time, including in China[1] and other countries,[2][3][3][4][5][6][7] lasting from about AD 950 to 1250.”

So not global… and please note once again that your paper does not mention a MWP.

Dots joined for you; the MWP and MCA refer to the same event. Try re-reading the wiki article again to see if you can spot it. (incidentaly the “Climate Anomaly” in the new paper was a warm one also, just in case you didn’t pick that up either.)

It’s a good match between MWP dates and the “warm interval” in the new paper. Hope that’s joins things up for you.

Thanks must go to GSW for inaugurating this month’s thread with yet-another spectacular own-goal!

I assume you are talking about the MCA/MWP thing here, rather than GSW citing Randi’s spectacularly unscientific AGW position on the Jan open thread? I don’t think the latter own goal should be quickly forgotten either, so allow me to bridge the Randi discussion from Jan to Feb.

GSW asserts that Randi:

…ultimately he chose to side with the evidence – he didn’t think AGW would be a problem

Bullshit!

Randi doesn’t cite any evidence to that effect – and his “arguments” ignore huge swathes of well known evidence. What he does cite is his own ill-informed disbelief based on a strawman of his own devising – that there are so many factors and it’s so complicated that science can’t reduce climate to a single equation, therefore…we just can’t know that we’re causing significant warming and we certainly can’t know that it will be quite detrimental if we warm it too much. And heck, Randi also admits that he may be arguing from personal ignorance! He doesn’t go close to showing that he comprehends the scientific evidence or the scientific understanding of the climate system – let alone citing evidence that would lead to his position.

What he does cite is the Oregon Petition and an alleged “growing number of prominent scientists [who] disagree” with the IPCC – but doesn’t bother to name a single one, let alone demonstrate that (a) they know what they’re talking about because they research climate, or that (b) their number is growing. He also lists apparently mutually contradictory claims made by the Oregon Petition without batting an eyelid – heck, he “strongly suspects it may be valid”!

But GSW protests at the mention of the Oregon Petition, I hear you say!

Randi didn’t say he was a climate sceptic because 32,000 individuals signed a petition.

Really?

He chose to cite the Petition as (a) a counter to the IPCC, and (b) after posing and ignoring this (almost) very good question:

Granted, it’s reassuring that they’re listening to academics at all — but how to tell the competent from the incompetent?

So…the most straightforward interpretation of his words is that the Oregon Petition was a significant influencing factor. In other words, he is quite probably a climate skeptic in part because of the Oregon Petition.

(And if only he’d asked that competency question of himself before he posted! Speaking of Randi’s question, it would be even better if he asked himself how to tell the robust scientific conclusions from those less well supported. He’s focused on the wrong entity – the individuals involved – not the outcome of the scientific process. And after posing that question, the rest of the essay is a case study in bad strategies for scientifically unskilled persons to determine what scientific findings to subscribe to and what to reject!)

What’s stunning is that GSW in his quest for validation of his views uses someone who has no peer-reviewed publications on the subject (hey, wait, I thought you was all for Teh Science, GSW?), provides no actual evidence yet ignores a whole load of well known evidence and then tries to imply we don’t have any data so we shouldn’t be theorising (hey, wait, I thought you was all for Teh Evidence, GSW?), relies on bogus arguments such as “it’s complicated, so I reckon we can’t reliably predict what will happen” and “it’s changed before” and “Oregon Petition”, and makes ludicrously unscientific claims as pointed out by other commenters on the January thread (and his somewhat skewed description of the greenhouse gas effect).

GSW, if you feel you have to tout people who reach the conclusions you like on such poor bases, you should consider whether perhaps the conclusions you prefer aren’t particularly well supported.

He was pointed to analysis of the flimsiness of the Oregon Petition and backed away from it. He states that he agrees the earth is warming (which he had previously indicated was disputed by the Oregon Petition, but didn’t pick up the contradiction). He reiterates he’s not sure how much is due to anthropogenic effects – although he lists a number of human activities that warm things, and he seems to think the biggest consequence of burning fossil fuels is heat released. If that were true it would mean that a significant portion of the warming was anthropogenic, but he seems to have completely elided that whole “greenhouse gas effect” thingie. He denies he’s denying anything, and asserts that he thinks it is quite probable that warming is anthropogenic. (He implicitly poses this as an either-or question rather not a matter of degree which doesn’t help.) But he still seems to cling to his personal incredulity at anthropogenic attribution.

He also thinks that his rather odd paragraph about phenomena that he alleged have cooled the planet over the last 150 years should have said “warmed” instead, but that doesn’t clear up the unsupported assertions either. It sounds like he cut and pasted it from somewhere but doesn’t recall the source.

So at that point he was looking much less like a denialist except perhaps about the science of attribution, but was still not showing good signs of clearly understanding the evidence, the theory or the outcomes of the scientific process.

Well yes that would be true Lotharsson except for one problem.
BradK (among others) has asked people here to specifically name what has been denied. You may notice that there is not an answer to that question.
Until there is one, there is no way to judge whether your use of the word is appropriate or not because it actually lacks a defined attributable subject.
Instead, it appears to be a simple case of name calling.
And as far as the posed question at the start goes?
I think all of you give too much attention to the likes of AJ.
He calls people names too. I find it no more attractive when he does it.
The real question I think is:
Has the Carbon Tax delivered on any of its stated promises /goals / benefits?
The argument that it hasn’t created doom is not really a constructive place to discuss the carbon tax (IMHO).

Electricity sold into the east coast market in the three months since the tax was introduced created on average 7.6 per cent less carbon dioxide for each megawatt hour of power, an analysis of figures compiled by the Australian Energy Market Operator shows.

So, Chameleon, are you going to ditch your wrong ideology, or deny the truth?

Randi’s just expressing his opinion, he has a track record of debunking scientist’s “who fool themselves” as per the example above, it’s what he does. The sheer volume of the stuff you post, or endless repeatitions of “Oregon Petition” as you have done, won’t change the fact that the “Alarmist” claims of climate science are so much hooey- it’s laughable what you guys are prepared to “Believe”.

Come off it Loth, he’s entitled to his opinion and he’s bright too. He has an in built “you’re being conned” detector. You don’t need a “consensus” of “expert” opinion if you have the evidence, and if you don’t have evidence, well there’s probably not much there.
A simple philosophy I know, but it works.

The objection has been that he doesn’t have the evidence for many of his claims which weren’t exactly coherent and that accordingly he wasn’t acting bright when he wrote that article. It has further been that you citing him as support for … something … isn’t very bright or evidence-based either.

You still don’t seem to realise you’re arguing by appeal to authority, not appeal to best inference from all the evidence. I’m betting you’ll choose not to realise it, all the while proclaiming how you and he are both going by the evidence.

With apologies to Ms Rowling (for the slight changes for effect to the following extract from the Goblet of Fire):

“… I’m keeping an eye out for Barmy Outoftouch. My
Contrarian opposite number’s making difficulties, and I can’t understand a word he’s
saying. Barmy… speaks about a hundred and fifty languages.”

“Mr Outoftouch?” said Mr Concerned-but-unknowledgeable … “He speaks over two hundred! Mermish and Gobbledegook and Troll…”
“Anyone can speak Troll,” said Sciency dismissively. “All you have to do is point and grunt.”

Just think**, should whatever have led to the mediaeval climate anomalies when CO2 levels were at preindustrial levels reoccur (in the recent past, now or in the future), they will cause periodic climate excursions much like the late twentieth century/early twenty-first century “cooling” we’ve experienced since about 1998 (a LTCETFCIA, so to speak) and the levels of heat and drought recently seen in Australia over about a decade “on and off” will now be “mostly on” and likely be multidecadal in extent (a MLTFCWP, so to speak) now that we are preparing the ground for going north of 400 ppm!

** I know this will be impossible for these and extremely hard for these, but that’s the unfortunate sad fact about the casino-of-life’s short-straw holders.

So I think we finally agree then. Randi has a perfectly valid opinion to express and he’s definitley in the anti psuedoscience camp. He doesn’t agree with you. Well, why would he? He like’s evidence for things, you’ve no idea what evidence is, or at least how to differentiate it from hopes, dreams and dubious paper tiger theories.

“So you think that because they both occurred in the 20th century that WWI and WWII were the same war?”

Well, some very distinguished historians will tell you that they were, not least because they stemmed from Germany pursuing the same grand strategic aims and that 1918 to 1939 was merely an interval. They have since pursued them by peaceful means and seem well on their way to success!

Perhaps there is a lesson there for you in the climate scientology cult, just keep repeating and pursuing your aims and objectives and perhaps one day . . .

Thank you, Lionel, but my preferred source *amongst many* would be Fritz Fischer’s “Germany’s Aims in the First World War” and the rather obvious way in which German grand strategy in both World Wars was heavily influenced by Sir Halford Mackinder, an Englishman, no less.

Needless to say. if you place three historians in a sack you will get four opinions, rather like climate scientologists, really – oh, and do give Tom C my kind regards when you see him at your next cult meeting and tell him he’ll never make a good Jack Reacher in a million years!

Given that Jack Reacher is a monodimensional action figure whose appeal is calculated to boost the flagging [*wink wink*], um, egos of wannabe-macho inadequates – rather like your Stalingrad military dolls, Duffer – I don’t see the problem.

Vince opines:
So, Chameleon, are you going to ditch your wrong ideology, or deny the truth?
What an extremely peculiar response to my comment!!
What’s my wrong ideology Vince?
What truth am I denying Vince?
A PR piece in the Age?
Since when would someone from deltoid accept such a piece as an ‘undeniable truth’?

Also Lotharsson?
I have never read anything of James Randi ‘s until the links supplied here.
On reading them it appears as if he has discovered that he didn’t actually know he was in a cult until he dared to question it!
After reading a little bit of his background, it appears that he has indeed earned the right to express his opinion on this particular subject along with several others as in GSW’s comments #42 & #45.
And I see no evidence in any context at all why you would deem to compare him to, or name him a ‘deniaist’.
What particular theor/y/ies has Randi ‘denied’ Lotharsson?
In what way has:
‘One used the words that are appropriate for the subject’
when we look at your treatment of the James Randi subject?

On reading them it appears as if he has discovered that he didn’t actually know he was in a cult until he dared to question it!

What a foolish characterisation! But I guess it’s easy to make if you can’t distinguish science from pseudo-science.

…it appears that he has indeed earned the right to express his opinion on this particular subject…

Astonishing how you and GSW attack the very same strawman!

I see no evidence in any context at all why you would deem to compare him to, or name him a ‘deniaist’.

Given that you (for example) STILL allege that Delingpole quoted Flannery saying “fleeting fancy” and are easily sucked in by pseudo-science, your personal judgement on this matter carries very little weight.

Yes Lotharsson,
I have actually noticed your fondness for making personal and highly opinionated allegations that you claim are about ‘the science’.
Your emotional and subjective comments re Randi @ # 26, 28, 38, 41 & are perfect examples of that.
Don’t you find your claims re Flannery a trifle irrelevant and probably a trifle ‘strawmannish’?
But just so you realise why that would be so,
I said that Delinpole had referred to Flannery past comments about ‘no snow by 2012.’
I did not and have not claimed that DELINGPOLE said that Flannery used the alliterative term ‘fleeting fancy’.
I was the one who made that claim Lotharsson and I remember it because the alliteration impressed me.
Flannery is very clever with words.
I also pointed out that I am no fan of Delingpole’s use of language.
And I will point out again that whatever Flannery and/or Delingpole did or didn’t say has nothing whatsoever to do with the current discussion re Randi and your non attributable name calling.

Can’t answer my questions Vince?
I can see that you can type but how about answering the questions as you type?
Let me repeat them for you Vince :
Vince opines:
So, Chameleon, are you going to ditch your wrong ideology, or deny the truth?
What an extremely peculiar response to my comment!!
What’s my wrong ideology Vince?
What truth am I denying Vince?
A PR piece in the Age?
Since when would someone from deltoid accept such a piece as an ‘undeniable truth’?
And BTW, the original comment was @# 31 and you pasted it again @# 33.

But go on, be my guest. Please quote ANY SENTENCE in that Delingpole article that quotes Flannery SAYING ANYTHING. Failing that quote ANY SENTENCE where Delingpole uses the word “2012” or the phrase “no snow”. Take your time. Check very carefully! I’ll wait.

…

…

…

Not there, is it? He didn’t quote Flannery at all, and didn’t use “2012” or “no snow” in the entire article, did he?

(Worse still, I suspect you are and were mixing up your “talking points”. You’re supposed to allege that Dr. Viner from the UEA said “no snow by 2012″! You’d be misleading people about what he meant, but at least you’d have the right guy.)

But it’s worse than that. Just now you claimed you NEVER alleged Delingpole quoted Flannery saying “fleeting fancy”. But let’s look at the wider context of what you wrote in that comment when you cited Delingpole to support you:

Delingpole draws attention to the same snow comment made by Tim Flannery in this article. … However, he also refers to the no snow by 2012 comment.

Firstly you were claiming TWO DIFFERENT Flannery snow comments were “drawn attention to” in Delingpole’s article. And one of them, from the context of the thread – see the preceding hundred comments or so – was the use of “fleeting fancy”.

So you’re STILL denying you claimed this, and you still haven’t admitted that not only does Delingpole not use the word “fleeting” or “fancy” in that article, but he doesn’t even refer to any saying by Flannery. He merely uses the name “Flannery” as a target for unsubstantiated mockery.

So:

I did not and have not claimed that DELINGPOLE said that Flannery used the alliterative term ‘fleeting fancy’.

…appears to be false, along with several of your other claims.

But we already know that you have a very poor memory of what you wrote, and quite frequently have very bad English interpretation skills, so maybe that explains it.

Lotharsson,
How about you answer the question re Den/y/alist/ism re Randi?
My comprehension and/or English interpretation skills are just peachy thanks.
Are you trying to now say I am a denialist because of something you think I said about Delingpole?
That’s hilarious.
ROFL!!!!

And I already explained when I first commented on it. Your questioning is based on not understanding what I said, but that doesn’t make my explanation disappear.

Here are a couple of quick re-quotes which address your question. One could hope that the second time around the light finally dawns for you, but that that would be foolish:

…his “arguments” ignore huge swathes of well known evidence.

And:

What he does cite is his own ill-informed disbelief based on a strawman of his own devising – that there are so many factors and it’s so complicated that science can’t reduce climate to a single equation, therefore…we just can’t know that we’re causing significant warming and we certainly can’t know that it will be quite detrimental if we warm it too much.

And:

What he does cite is … an alleged “growing number of prominent scientists [who] disagree” with the IPCC – but doesn’t bother to name a single one, let alone demonstrate that (a) they know what they’re talking about because they research climate, or that (b) their number is growing.

And:

He also lists apparently mutually contradictory claims made by the Oregon Petition without batting an eyelid – heck, he “strongly suspects it may be valid”!

Electricity sold into the east coast market in the three months since the tax was introduced created on average 7.6 per cent less carbon dioxide for each megawatt hour of power, an analysis of figures compiled by the Australian Energy Market Operator shows.

You dismiss it, not because you’ve analysed the information I provided, but because your ideology tells you what you want the answer to your question to be, and that conflicts with reality.

When your ideology conflicts with reality, you will never be able to project any kind of competence or integrity, because you need to avoid facts and tell lies in order to maintain your flimsy fantasy-world which is the only place your ideology actually has any meaning.

“For these reasons, I can understand why some climate campaigners, writers and scientists don’t want to focus on any science hinting that there might be a bit more time to make this profound energy transition. (There’s also reluctance, I’m sure, because the recent work is trending toward the published low sensitivity findings from a decade ago from climate scientists best known for their relationships with libertarian groups.)”

@Lotharsson & Vince,
I’m starting to fear for your sanity.
I am NOT interested in launching personal attacks in order to defend and/or attack news reports, PR pieces and/or opinion pieces.
It’s unproductive and a waste of time.
Vince, the Age article is presented as a report on the findings, but it is essentially a PR piece.
When I go to the aemo site, there is no direct causation statement about the Carbon Tax.
There is certainly no peer reviewed scientific article on it.
If you read the whole Age article it does NOT conclude that the CO2 tax is the major reason for the drop in demand over that short period. It is listed as a possible cause by some of those who are interviewed. Other ‘experts’ interviewed for that article have different views.
In reality, the timeframe is way too short anyway.
So your comments about my ideology and bolding the word ‘denialism’ is totally irrelevant to my comment re the question at this post and my subsequent question re the efficacy of the carbon tax.
Maybe you don’t understand how journalists put together articles like these and how they obtain their information?

Lotharsson,
If you look at the date of the Delingpole article and also the subject matter re snow and then his reference to Flannery et al, it is clear (to me at least) that he is referring to their individual comments re ‘no snow by 2012′ that were made several years earlier. His use of hyperbole is not constructive but he was referring to their earlier predictive statements re snow.
I find it amusing that we have posts here about ‘wrong predictions’ yet this is clearly an issue for what you lot would call ‘both hands’ or perhaps ‘both sides’.
Many people have made ‘wrong predictions’ in the public arena.
I agree Delingpole does not use the ‘fleeting fancy’ alliterative term but I didn’t ever say that he did, so your post (to me at least) looks like you’re arguing with yourself
Why are you getting soooooooo tied up in knots about opinion pieces that ask questions about the politics attached to climate change and also the rather excessive behaviour of the celebrities of AGW?
Why has Randi’s piece caused you so much angst?
There is no doubt he has been around for a long time and that he has been commenting on science issues for a long time.
Seriously, when I read the links you posted I could not see why you were making such a fuss. It appears that Randi coudn’t see it either. It did read like he felt he had inadvertently asked the wrong question of a ‘group’ that he didn’t know he belonged to.
You seem to be way more interested in trying to conduct an ‘academic pissing contest’ or engage in your tribal ‘ritual intellectual humiliation’.
As I commented to JeffH some time back, I am not your enemy and nor am I anti the environment.
Your attempts to prove that I am are just making me laugh.
It doesn’t matter how many times you try to claim it, or how many different ways you try to argue it, I am still not your enemy or anti the environment.
I also find it amusing that even though JeffH assured BradK that they could be friends, you, Lotharsson claimed BradK was even deeper in ‘denial’ for even contemplating that idea.
As I commented to BBD some time back, I think he has asked one of the more productive questions here.
What are we trying to achieve?
I am interested in practical public policy that achieves measureable & practical outcomes.:
I think science and statistics and various methods of statistical projective modelling can help guide public policy but I don’t believe they can dictate it or that they are magic and therefore ‘undeniable’ predictive tools.
I also don’t believe that the current political agenda is using a successful scale to tackle environmental issues.
Despite your assertions otherwise, I don’t visit blogs that often. I have visited deltoid way more often than any other blog and that’s because the attitude here has caused me great amusement & some enlightenment (and it happened to be a holiday period when I discovered this site)
I usually only comment on news articles and opinion pieces and even then it is very rare.
I realise that this will probably set you off again and I probably should not keep winding you up.
But it is funny to watch.
However you could surprise me and actually stay on topic rather than launch into yet another personal attack and/or supercilious lecture about your perception of my lack of mental capacity

If you look at the date of the Delingpole article and also the subject matter re snow and then his reference to Flannery et al, it is clear (to me at least) that he is referring to their individual comments re ‘no snow by 2012′ that were made several years earlier.

That’s exactly why we say you have severe comprehension problems!

He’s using a common idiom “not a snowball’s chance in hell” to scornfully declare that serious global warming isn’t occurring, and doing so by referring to a Ridley piece that claims that climate sensitivity is on the rather low side due to research on aerosols and ocean warming.

That idiom is the ONLY mention of snow in the entire piece.

He doesn’t indicate that Ridley mentions snow.

He doesn’t refer to snow or lack of it in Britain.

He doesn’t refer to Flannery or Viner talking about snow.

His use of hyperbole is not constructive but he was referring to their earlier predictive statements re snow.

That’s just sad.

If he was he would have said so. He’s not shy of scornfully denouncing claims that he thinks have been proven wrong.

I agree Delingpole does not use the ‘fleeting fancy’ alliterative term but I didn’t ever say that he did…

You implied it. You are lying by omission by claiming that you never said it.

By “global warming”, I mean, of course the kind of runaway, unprecedented, catastrophic warming which George Monbiot et al have been bleating on about for the last two or three decades. And by “not a snowball’s chance in hell”, I mean, that the likelihood of such a thing occurring is now roughly on a par with Elvis being discovered alive and well and living in Bolivia and ready to rush record a new album just in time for Christmas. (Cue: a stampede to the record stores by Michael Mann, Al Gore, the Prince of Wales, Tim Flannery, and the rest of the climate fool gang).

I fed this and the original URL into the Parse-O-Matic 3000, along with the Query String ‘Find Reference: Tim Flannery quote Snow will be Fleeting Fancy 2012′ and got the result –

Writer makes to reference to the year 2012, or predictions, successful or unsuccessful, regarding snow or snowfall by Flannery, Tim.

Original writing is clearly timed to draw attention to recent article in Wall Street Journal by Ridley, Matt. Although written in December 2012 at the start of the Northern Hemisphere winter and illustrated by a ‘Snowman’, writer motivation is extremely unlikely to relate to either the year itself or to snowfall in Australia, which is limited in scope on the continental mainland and occurs mainly in the months of June through to September.

By “global warming”, I mean, of course the kind of runaway, unprecedented, catastrophic warming which George Monbiot et al have been bleating on about for the last two or three decades. And by “not a snowball’s chance in hell”, I mean, that the likelihood of such a thing occurring is now roughly on a par with Elvis being discovered alive and well and living in Bolivia and ready to rush record a new album just in time for Christmas. (Cue: a stampede to the record stores by Michael Mann, Al Gore, the Prince of Wales, Tim Flannery, and the rest of the climate fool gang).

I fed this and the original URL into the Parse-O-Matic 3000, along with the Query String ‘Find Reference: Tim Flannery quote Snow will be Fleeting Fancy 2012′ and got the result –

Writer makes no reference to the year 2012, or predictions, successful or unsuccessful, regarding snow or snowfall by Flannery, Tim.

Original writing is clearly timed to draw attention to recent article in Wall Street Journal by Ridley, Matt. Although written in December 2012 at the start of the Northern Hemisphere winter and illustrated by a ‘Snowman’, writer motivation is extremely unlikely to relate to either the year itself or to snowfall in Australia, which is limited in scope on the continental mainland and occurs mainly in the months of June through to September.

For all those here who like to push the no-warming for 1n years meme, we know who you are and you should know who you are but you probably won’t because self-awareness is demonstrably not one of your strong points, then this is a timely article which lays out the facts .

Recursive fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation indeed!

Nonetheless, as some readers of this blog may remember, this article engendered considerable controversy.

The article also generated data.

Data, because for social scientists, public statements and publically-expressed ideas constitute data for further research. Cognitive scientists sometimes apply something called “narrative analysis” to understand how people, groups, or societies are organized and how they think.

In the case of the response to our earlier paper, we were struck by the way in which some of the accusations leveled against our paper were, well, somewhat conspiratorial in nature.

What, like, for instance, the kind of thinking that can maintain that Merchants of Doubt is an ‘anti-semitic pamphlet’?

It was amazing – Lewandowsky could virtually have put up a sign saying ‘this post is a nutter honey-trap – you are being studied’ – and still they came! And still they raved! Maintaining that the idea that they were conspiracy theorists was yet more evidence of a conspiracy against them, because, you know, they’re, like, not, even though there clearly is a plot against them…

Does anyone have an estimate of how long it will take for the carbon tax to correct climate change? Is it too early for people to feel good about themselves or should they continue with their guilt until they are told otherwise?

Does anyone have an estimate of how long it will take for the ban on smoking in pubs in Adelaide to reduce the cancer rate? Is it too early for people to feel good about themselves or should they continue with their guilt until they are told otherwise?

As always, if the globe was divided evenly into 320 nations the size of Australia each of them could justly claim there little bit of CO2 makes no difference, and everything they do makes no difference.

As it is, we live in a global community.

Also, which nation in the world has gained the most due to China’s rapid industrialization, would you say – hint; which first-world nation and raw material exporter weathered the GFC best?

Bill,
Your comment does not deal with the actual point.
The carbon tax will make no noticeable difference.
You are conflating economic and moral arguments.
As David B correctly highlights above, countries like China are completely dwarfing anything that Australia may or may not achieve.
Your comment/rhetoric re Australia’s trading relationship with China does not change that.
Even if we stopped trading with China it would not change what David B pointed out above.

I’m not a fan of sociologists and psychologists due to the fact their work tends to be more fashion than science, but Lewandowsky’s found a perfect vehicle for criticism of the entirely anti-factual anti-science brigade.

Using established criteria to identify conspiracist ideation, we show that many of the hypotheses exhibited conspiratorial content and counterfactual thinking. For example, whereas hypotheses were initially narrowly focused on LOG12, some ultimately grew in scope to include actors beyond the authors of LOG12, such as university executives, a media organization, and the Australian government. The overall pattern of the blogosphere’s response to LOG12 illustrates the possible role of conspiracist ideation in the rejection of science,

I suspect Joanne Codling inadvertantly provided a good proportion of the data used in this analysis.

Let’s see if she chooses to provide *even more* data this time around…..

Interestingly, one of my favourite recursive theories was that the LOG12 paper was originally conceived to provoke the very reaction documented in Recursive Fury. It’s a deliciously recursive theory when you think about it – suggesting that the LOG12 result linking conspiracy ideation to denial wasn’t a real study but that the conspiracy theorising reaction to LOG12 was real. Hard to figure out the thinking that went into devising that theory.

Actually….if I could be bothered going back through back issues of Deltoid, I’m pretty sure I could find evidence that that was my conspiracy theory….